Sacramento, California—On Tuesday, May 29, at 11:30 am, EFF Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon will urge state senators to pass a bill that would protect net neutrality in California.

A coalition of lawmakers, small businesses, consumer and social justice groups, and open internet advocates are holding a press conference to voice support for S.B. 822, which would require ISPs to adhere to net neutrality principles. ISPs would be prohibited from user-unfriendly practices, such as data throttling, which can force customers to pay more to get better streaming speeds, and paid prioritization, which allows ISPs to charge for some Internet services to be sped up, while all the rest are slowed down. The bill would also prohibit discriminatory zero-rating practices that violate net neutrality and threaten innovation and user choice.

The bill, introduced by State Sen. Scott Wiener, is one of many pending in states around the country to fill the gaps created when the Federal Communications Commission abdicated its role on protecting net neutrality earlier this year. Without these protections, big telecommunications and cable companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon will become Internet gatekeepers, with broad power to favor or disfavor certain products and services.

At the press conference Falcon will urge lawmakers to immediately pass S.B. 822, which has been lauded as the gold standard for state-based net neutrality legislation. Californians, like all Americans, deserve a free and open Internet that provides a fair and equal opportunity to all comers and not just those who can pay the ISPs more money.

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